The TSL Horror Grindhouse: My Friends Need Killing (dir by Paul Leder)

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

At the start of 1976’s My Friends Need Killing, Gene Kline (Greg Mullavey) and his wife, Laura (Meredith MacRae) lie in bed together. Gene can’t sleep. He’s haunted by the sounds of gunfire and explosions and people barking out orders at him. A Vietnam vet, Gene has been seeing a Dr. MacLaine (Eric Morris) for help with dealing with his wartime PTSD but it hasn’t done him much good. Without telling Laura, Gene has been sending letters to the former members of his platoon, letting them know that he will soon be visiting them in each of their home cities. Gene says that he’s just dropping by for a visit but the reality is that Gene has decided that his friends need killing.

Without telling his wife, Gene leaves home in the morning and heads to San Francisco. While Laura is looking at old pictures of Gene and having flashbacks to their perfect wedding day, Gene is stalking the people with whom he committed an atrocity in Vietnam. Like Gene, the former members of his platoon have struggled to adjust to returning home. One lives in Texas, loves to hunt, and brags about how he never thinks about the war. Another has found work as a trucker. Another has a nice big house and a pregnant wife and still suffers from flashbacks of his own. Perhaps the most tragic of Gene’s friends is Les Drago (Roger Cruz), who is now a performance artist and an anti-war activist and who recites Lady MacBeth’s “out damn spot” speech while discussing his activities during the war.

My Friends Need Killing is a short but intense movie. It may only have a 73-minute running time and a portion of that running time may be taken up with filler but Gene pursues his mission with a relentless and ruthless determination that is ultimately very unsettling to watch. As played by Greg Mullavey, Gene wanders through the film with the thousand-yard stare of a man who has truly snapped. Years after the war, he can’t forgive anyone, including himself. To him, it doesn’t matter that someone like Les returned from Vietnam and decided to dedicate his life to preventing another pointless war. What matters to Gene is getting vengeance on those who he blames for his sins. Even though the film makes clear that Gene’s actions are due to his experiences during the war, Gene himself never becomes a sympathetic figure. He’s too vicious in his murders, even targeting the wife of one of his platoonmates.

Adding to the film’s unsettling and grim atmosphere is the film’s rather ragged editing. Scenes begin and end abruptly, sometimes in mid-conversation. Each murder is followed by a shot of an airplane landing in another city as Gene continues his mission. Scenes of Gene having flashbacks are haphazardly mixed with scenes of Laura and Dr. MacLaine trying to figure out where Gene has disappeared to. One is tempted to smile at the film’s score, which sounds more appropriate for a 70s cop show than a movie about a murderous vet, but even the score ultimately adds to the film’s off-center feel. The score feels as out-of-place as the happiness of his friends does to Gene. My Friends Need Killing ultimately feels like a film about a world that is spiraling out of control. The film ends on a truly odd note, one that suggests that there is hope for the future, even if there’s no place for Gene in it.

Much like Bob Clark’s Deathdream, My Friends Need Killing suggested that mainstream America would never be ready to fully accept what happened in Vietnam.

Ghost Track (2022, directed by Jason M.J. Brown)

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

Years ago, a teenager named Morris died when he was run over by a train while five of his friends helplessly watched. Even though they did not mean for him to die, Morris’s friends grow up feeling guilty. Years later, all of Morris’s now-adult friends find themselves being stalked by a ghostly presence who slips notes under their door telling them that they are going to die. Marcus (Adam Probets) thinks that Morris is responsible for the disappearance of the school bus that was carrying his son (along with many other children). Can Morris’s friends put his soul to rest before he kills all of them?

I will give this movie some credit. Considering that it wasn’t made for much money, the scenes around the train tracks are effectively shot and feature vivid cinematography. The inside scenes are too darky lit but the movie looks fine whenever the action moves outside. Ghost Track also had one good twist towards the end.

For the most part, though, Ghost Track was poorly acted with some of the least convincing death scene that I’ve ever seen. I think part of the problem is that I never felt like a knew who the characters were either before or after the accident with the train so I never knew how their lives had been effected by Morris’s death. Plus, the subplot about the missing school bus felt like an unnecessary distraction. Maybe if we had actually seen the kids on the school bus before it disappeared, it would have been different but instead, the school bus is something that we hear a lot about with really having the context to know what to think about it.

Ghost Track felt like a feature-length version of one of those public information films that the BBC used to air, warning children not to play on the railroad tracks. It’s just not as scary as The Finishing Line.

Horror Scenes That I Love: Doug Bradley Makes His Debut As Pinhead in Hellraiser

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Born in Liverpool, actor Doug Bradley is a longtime personal friend to author Clive Barker and appeared in Barker’s short film Salome, playing the role of King Herod. When Barker was making his feature directorial debut with 1987’s Hellraiser and he needed someone to play the head Cenobite, he turned once again to Bradley and the result was one of the most iconic horror characters of all time.

While the Cenobites may have all had disturbing physical features, what truly made them frightening was their arrogant disdain for anyone who was foolish enough to summon them. Bradley perfectly portrayed Pinhead’s haughty arrogance, starting with his very first appearance in Hellraiser.

When Bradley as Pinhead says, “We’ll tear your soul apart,” the viewer has no doubt that he means every word of it.

Horror Book Review: Haunted by R.L. Stine

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First published in 1990, Haunted tells the story of Melissa, a teenager who would seem to have the perfect life.

No only does she come from a wealthy family and live in a nice, big house that is located right in the middle of Fear Street but Melissa is also a popular student at Shadyside High and she has a boyfriend named Buddy. Plus, she’s just celebrated her birthday and, as a present, she got a brand new car! The only thing that Melissa really has to worry about is the possibility of her house being broken into by the elusive Fear Street Prowler and the fact that a bitter ghost named Paul keeps materializing in front of her and claiming that she killed him and he’s come back from the dead to get revenge. Paul is not only a revenge-seeking ghost but he also taunts Melissa for being rich. Perhaps the only thing worse than being haunted is by being haunted by a ghost from the lower classes. I mean, seriously, I don’t even want to think about it….

(Usual disclaimer: I do NOT believe in ghosts.)

Melissa is not only annoyed by Paul’s bad manners but also by the fact that he claims that she killed him when she has absolutely no memory of who he is. In fact, when she does some simple research to see if anyone recently killed Paul, she discovers that no one named Paul has been murdered recently. Paul himself admits that his memory is a little bit fuzzy, as well. Accusing someone of murdering you when you’re really not sure isn’t a cool thing to do, Paul. Stupid ghost.

Then, one night, Melissa sees Paul hanging out with his other less-than-wealthy friends. Only, this Paul is alive and he’s even more of a jerk than his ghost! Melissa realizes that Paul’s ghost is from the future and that therefore, Paul has not died yet but will and apparently, she’s going to be the one responsible! But how can that be when Ghost Paul is turning out to be not that bad and actually kind of sweet?

(Myself, I’m more concerned with how Living Paul and Ghost Paul both existing at the same time seems like one of those things that would cause the universe to split open or something. I mean, it just doesn’t seem right.)

This is one of R.L. Stine’s stranger books. The plot doesn’t really make much sense but you have to kind of admire the fact that Stine just went with it and didn’t even bother to try to make any of it seem plausible. Sometimes, it’s best just to embrace the silliness of it all and that’s what Stine does here. The book’s attempts to deal with class differences were fairly shallow but then again, when you’re a teenager, you’re always at you’re most shallow when talking about who is rich and who is poor so, on that level, Stine did a good job writing for his target audience. The important thing is that Melissa was a relatable and sympathetic character and she definitely deserved a less petulant ghost.

October True Crime: Overkill: The Aileen Wuornos Story (dir by Peter Levin)

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Made for television in 1992, Overkill: The Aileen Wuronos Story opens with Aileen (Jean Smart) and her friend, Tyria Moore (Park Overall), hitchhiking their way through Florida. Aileen is outspoken and unpredictable, quick to lose her temper with anyone who doesn’t give her a ride or money and also very possessive of Tyria. Tyria is naïve and a bit spacey, though she is smart enough to have figured out that Aileen is financing their trip through sex work.

Of course, if you’ve seen Monster, you already know the story of Aileen and Tyria and you also know that Aileen is eventually going to end up in a lot of trouble and Tyria is going to be pressured to betray her. Monster made it clear that Aileen and Tyria were a romantic couple and it even suggests that, for all of her crimes, Aileen sincerely loved Tyria. Overkill, probably due to being a made-for-television movie from the 90s, treats Aileen and Tyria’s relationship a bit more ambiguously. While Aileen is portrayed as being very possessive and very protective of Tyria, their relationship is portrayed as being more of a roommate situation than a romantic one. Indeed, Aileen is often portrayed as being almost stalkerish in her behavior towards Tyria. Aileen comes across as being much more interested in Tyria than Tyria is in Aileen.

While Aileen and Tyria travel across Florida, men are turning up dead up and down the interstates. The victims were all shot and they were all middle-class, white professionals. Most of them are found in circumstances that suggested that they had picked someone up and that person subsequently shot and then robbed them. When Detective Brian Munster (Brion James) suggests that all of the men could have fallen victim to a female serial killer, his colleagues are skeptical. Everyone knows that serial killers are always men. But Munster continues to insist that the murderer must be a woman and soon, he comes to suspect that the killer could be Aileen. However, all of the evidence that Brian has is circumstantial and it won’t be enough to get a conviction. He and the member of his investigative team start to watch Aileen, waiting for her to make a mistake that will give them what they need to make an arrest….

After she was convicted of murdering seven men, Aileen Wournos claimed that the police always knew that she was the one committing the murders but that they didn’t arrest her because they wanted to reap the publicity from pursuing America’s first female serial killer. As evidence, she cited this movie and it must be admitted that this movie does feature a lot of scenes of Munster and his detectives waiting for Aileen to make her next move. That said, one would think that Overkill would be the last movie that Aileen would want to bring attention to because the film essentially presents Aileen Wournos as being a petulant and trashy psychopath who turned to crime because she was too stupid to do anything else with her life. If Monster portrayed Aileen as being someone who had been so damaged by society that she could no longer function, Overkill portrays Aileen as being someone who uses her childhood trauma as a convenient excuse for her own antisocial tendencies.

Overkill is a considerably more simplistic portrayal of Aileen’s crimes than Monster. That said, Jean Smart does a good job in the role and is convincingly angry at the world. Overkill is more about the effort to catch Aileen than Aileen herself and character actor Brion James, who usually played villains over the course of his career (like Leon in Blade Runner and the killer in The Horror Show), makes for a convincingly no-nonsense cop. Overkill is a well-made and well-acted film, even if it does ultimately feel a bit shallow in its storytelling.

Horror Film Review: Lake of Dracula (dir by Michio Yamamoto)

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

All of her life, Akiko (Midori Fujita) has been haunted by a dream in which, as a little girl, she followed her dog into an abandoned house and ran into a pale man (Mori Kishida) who had golden eyes and fangs for teeth. Even living a somewhat idyllic life on the shores of a lovely lake and dating a handsome young doctor (Osahide Takahashi), Akiko cannot shake the feeling that what she has been telling herself was a dream may have actually happened to her.

One day, a large crate is sent to a nearby boat operator. When the man opens the crate, he discovers that it contains a coffin. Can you guess what’s in that coffin? Soon strange things are happening all around town. Bodies start to show up at the hospital with bite marks on their necks. Akiko’s dog disappears and the formerly friendly boat operator suddenly starts to act in an aggressive manner. Even worse, Akiko’s sister, Natsuko (Sanae Emi), vanishes. Akiko comes to believe that it is somehow all linked to her dream, which might not have been a dream at all. She and her boyfriend head back to her hometown, searching for the house from her dreams so that they may finally find out the truth about the pale man with the golden eyes and fangs and…. well, I don’t know why exactly they think they have to find out the truth. It’s pretty obvious that he’s a vampire, right? I mean, the fangs were kind of a dead giveaway.

When I came across the 1971 film, Lake of Dracula, on Tubi, my initial response was to say, “Oh, cool! A Japanese Dracula film! I wonder what that’s going to be like!” Having watched the film, I can say that, along with being a Japanese Dracula film, Lake of Dracula is also an extremely conventional vampire film. This is one of those films where it’s so obvious from the start that the villain is a vampire that you can’t help but get a bit annoyed at the other characters for not figuring it out as quickly as you did. While I’m not really sure if the vampire in the film is meant to be the Dracula (and, despite the title, I’m actually pretty sure that he’s not), the character is obviously a vampire and, beyond the golden eyes, this film doesn’t really bring anything new to the vampire mythos. If you’re hoping that this film will feature the hopping vampires that made films like Kung Fu Zombie so memorable, you’re destined to be disappointed.

That said, it’s a lovely film to look at, full of vibrant colors and properly ominous shadows and the golden eyes are definitely a memorable effect. The film is full of nicely creepy locations, with the house from Akiko’s dream being exactly the type of place that would inspire a lifetime full of nightmares. It’s a conventional film but it’s full of genuine melancholy and a good deal of ominous atmosphere, all of which keeps the film watchable even if it never quite takes the viewer by surprise.

4 Shots From 4 Horror Films: Special Roy Ward Baker Edition

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films is all about letting the visuals do the talking.

This October, I am going to be using our 4 Shots From 4 Films feature to pay tribute to some of my favorite horror directors, in alphabetical order! That’s right, we’re going from Argento to Zombie in one month!

Today’s director is Roy Ward Baker, one of the masters of Hammer and Amicus horror!

4 Shots From 4 Roy Ward Baker Films

Quatermass and the Pitt (1967, dir by Roy Ward Baker, DP: Arthur Grant)

The Vampire Lovers (1970, dir by Roy Ward Baker, DP: Moray Grant)

Scars of Dracula (1970, dir by Roy Ward Baker, DP: Moray Grant)

The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974, dir by Roy Ward Baker, DP; John Wilcox and Roy Ford)

The Covers Of Mystery Tales

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Dazzling Erin

Mystery Tales was one of the many pulp magazines from West Fiction Publishing Company. From 1938 to 1940, over the course of 9 issues, Mystery Tales brought readers stories of cults, criminals, demons, femme fatales, and damsels in distress. Though I’m sure the stories were fine, the magazine is today mostly remembered and sought after by collectors for its extremely lurid covers. Below are 7 of the covers of Mystery Tales!

June, 1938. Cover by Norman Saunders

November, 1938. Cover by John Walter Scott

May, 1939. Cover by John Walter Scott

September, 1939. Cover by John Walter Scott

December, 1939. Cover by John Walter Scott

March, 1940. Cover by John Walter Scott.

May, 1940. Cover by John Walter Scott.

Horror Film Review: Waxwork (dir by Anthony Hickox)

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1988, Waxwork asks the audience with a very important question.

Let’s say that you and your best friend were walking to school one day when you suddenly noticed a gigantic mansion that you had never seen before, sitting in the middle of your neighborhood. And what if a tall, somewhat sinister Englishman (played by David Warner, none the less) suddenly appeared out of nowhere and told you that the mansion was actually a waxwork. And what if that Englishman than invited you to come to the waxwork at midnight and specifically asked you to come in a group of 6. Would you do it?

Now, I know that your first instinct is to say, “Of course, I wouldn’t!” That’s the type of answer that we’ve been conditioned to give because no one wants to admit that they can be as dumb as a character in a horror movie. But really, I would go. Especially if, like the characters in Waxwork, I was a teenager. (Actually, most of the characters in Waxwork are described as being college students but they all act like high school students and their college appears to be a high school so draw your own conclusions.) When you’re a certain age, you feel like you’re immortal and an invitation to hang out in a creepy building with a bunch of strangers at midnight feels totally reasonable.

Anyway, four rich kids — Mark (Zach Galligan), China (Michelle Johnson), Sarah (Deborah Foreman), and Tony (Dana Ashbrook, a year before he was cast as Laura Palmer’s boyfriend in Twin Peaks) — visit the waxwork at midnight. What they discover is that the building is full of macabre exhibits that recreate various moments from horror history. There’s werewolves, vampires, and Jack the Ripper. There’s also the Marquis de Sade, a figure that the seemingly innocent Sarah becomes fascinated with. And, as two of the visitors discover, stepping past the red rope and entering an exhibit transports them into an alternate world where they become the victim of the star of each display.

Not surprisingly, the film is at its best when imagining the world inside each exhibit. Each exhibit has its own backstory and its own set of guest stars. John Rhys-Davies shows up as a werewolf. Miles O’Keeffe is a properly urbane Count Dracula. J. Kenneth Campbell plays the Marquis de Sade, who the film imagines as a swashbuckling sadist. That said, I think the most effectively frightening exhibit was one that featured no special guest stars but a very determined and very strong mummy.

What’s going on at the waxwork!? As explained by Sir Wilfred (Patrick Macnee, bringing some welcome wit and style to the film), it’s all a part of a scheme to bring the most evil beings ever back into existence so that they can conquer the world. It’s important that none of the waxworks be allowed to enter the real world and soon, Sir Wilfred and his ragtag army are laying siege to the waxwork and bringing things to an apocalyptic conclusion. The final battle is a bit haphazardly edited and it’s impossible to really keep track of who is fighting on which side. (Indeed, I’m still not sure where Sir Wilfred even found his army.) But it does feature plenty of in-jokes for horror fans, including a cameo appearance by the carnivorous plant from Little Shop of Horrors.

Waxwork is entertaining film. It doesn’t take itself particularly seriously and, indeed, Mark, China, Sarah, Tony, and all of their friends feel as if they could just as easily have been found in the pages of a Bret Easton Ellis novel about pretty but vapid alcoholics. Mark is the type who gets his maid to write his term papers. Tony just wants to drink (but, because he’s played by the adorable Dana Ashbrook, he’s still the most likable character in the film). China says, “I do what I want, when I want,” when confronted about cheating on her boyfriend. Sarah is the “innocent” one but just seeing the words “Marquis de Sade” causes her to swoon. Dropping these four idiots into a situation where the fate of the world is at stake feels like a wonderfully sardonic cosmic joke.

In the end, the true pleasure of Waxwork is watching old pros like David Warner, Patrick Macnee, and the exhibit guest stars hamming it up. Macnee, in particular, seems to enjoy leading the final charge against the forces of evil and, indeed, it’s hard not to wish that he had even more screen time than he did. David Warner, meanwhile, rolls his eyes at just how difficult it can be to bring the 18 most evil figure in history back to life. It’s hard work but I guess someone has to do it!

Horror Film Review: The Invisible Man Returns (dir by Joe May)

Posted on October 3, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1940’s The Invisible Man Returns opens with Sir Geoffrey Radcliffe (Vincent Price) sitting on Death Row. Convicted of the murder of his brother, Radcliffe is due to soon be executed. Radcliffe claims that he was framed and his girlfriend, Helen Manson (Nan Grey), has spent the past week of her life begging for someone to order a stay on the execution. However, with the home secretary out of the country, there is no hope of a reprieve.

Dr. Frank Griffin (John Sutton), brother of the original Invisible Man, visits Radcliffe in prison and gives him the same serum that his brother previously developed. Now invisible, Radcliffe is able to escape from the prison. Radcliffe is determined to prove his innocence but Dr. Griffin is more concerned with developing a way to reverse the serum’s effects before Radcliffe is driven insane, just as the original Invisible Man was. Radcliffe becomes convinced that his brother was murdered by their cousin, Ricard Cobb (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) but is Radcliffe correct or is the serum just making him paranoid? With Inspector Sampson (Cecil Kellaway) searching for Radcliffe and fully aware of what effects the serum are going to have on his mind, can Radcliffe clear his name before he loses his sanity?

The Invisible Man Returns went into production after the success of Son of Frankenstein proved that there was a market for sequels to previously successful horror films. (Yes, there was a time when sequels were not an automatic thing.) This was also one of the first horror films in which Vincent Price made an appearance. (Today, we’re so used to the image of Vincent Price as a somewhat campy horror icon that it’s easy to forget that he originally started his career as a romantic leading man and was even seriously considered for the role of Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Wind.) As he spends the majority of the film wearing the same tight bandages that hid Claude Rain in the first film, Price’s actual face is only visible for slightly less than a minute and, without his famous mustache, it’s actually rather difficult to recognize him. That said, there’s no mistaking Price’s voice, heard as the invisible Radcliffe bitterly complains about everything from a barking dog to other people’s doubts about Cobb being the murderer. While this film does find Price in a slightly more subtle mood than many of us horror fans are used to, it still features plenty of hints of what the future would hold.

I enjoyed The Invisible Man Returns, which featured some witty invisibility sequences (watch invisible Vincent Price toss off those clothes!) and also managed to take the story’s violence about as far as it could without violating the production code. While it’s always a pleasure to watch any film featuring Vincent Price, I also liked the performance of Cecil Kellaway, who played the inspector as being the epitome of the the upstanding but dryly humorous British policeman. One gets the feeling that absolutely nothing could ever take the Inspector by surprise …. not even an Invisible Man!